#mill woods

Text: Matthew 4:12-23 (Jesus begins his ministry)

Call and response is a practice in which a leader interacts with a crowd using familiar phrases.

Most Sundays when I come to the pulpit I say, “May the peace of Christ be with you,” and you respond “and also with you.” That’s call and response.

When I first went to a gathering led by the Rev. Tazvi Nyarota, the minister of the Zimbabwean congregation that worships here on Sunday afternoons — this was at the Intercultural Christmas Choirs Concert at McDougall United in December 2015 — Tazvi began by exclaiming “God is Good!” to which the congregation replied “All the time!” Tazi then echoed “All the time!” back to us, and we responded with “God is Good!” That’s call and response.

Call and response is often found in African-American worship and pop music. It helps a gathering to take ownership of what is being said or sung.

This morning we heard a story from Matthew about a different type of call and response. In it, Jesus calls his first disciples — Peter, Andrew, James and John — at the Sea of Galilee.

As soon as Jesus calls these four by name, they drop their nets, leave their families, and head out to surrounding towns to teach, preach and heal.

This is the start of Jesus’ ministry. He takes leadership, issues a call, and recruits some followers to serve the people.

Not all calls are as clear cut as this. Nor are all responses as dramatic as dropping everything to leave home, family and career. But if we think back on our lives, we may remember stories that contain at least an echo of today’s Gospel reading.

I have one from the spring of 2002. At the time, I was struggling with a failing marriage. So I met with the Rev. Rivkah Unland, the minister of the church in east-end Toronto that I had joined six months earlier. After hearing what I had to say, she suggested some things I might consider.

The one that struck the strongest chord in me was to go on a wilderness canoe trip. The idea scared me. But I knew immediately that it would be good for me and that I would do it.

So that July, I went on a week-long camping trip in Ontario’s Algonquin Park with 18 other people. It was organized by the United Church’s Five Oaks Centre.

I was nervous about my bad back because canoeing and portaging can be so demanding. I also worried about digestion, bugs, storms, and being with 18 strangers for seven days and nights.

But in the event — despite rain, exhaustion, mosquitoes, and snoring companions — I loved the week. In the face of fear, this trip helped to solidify my understanding of faith. Faith is not about believing incredible things. It is about trust — trust in our bodies despite their fragility; trust in the earth despite its indifference to us; trust in community despite the brokenness and pain we all bring to relationships; and trust in the God who is the Ground of Being, Life, and Love.

When Rivkah suggested the canoe trip, I heard it as a call to confront fear. By going on the trip, I re-learned that we can feel the fear and do it anyway. If we are lucky, our fears prove to be illusory, and sometimes, our fears come true.

I liked the first trip in 2002 so much that I went back to Algonquin over the next five summers. And on the third summer, one of my fears came true. About halfway through the week, my back gave out. I was still able to paddle, but I could no longer carry a canoe on the portages. I had to rely on others to take up the slack, which made me feel bad.

Happily, this reminded me that some of the things we fear are not as bad as we imagine, and that life in community involves a constant swing between giving and receiving.

Another feature of those canoe trips was sharing. Every few days, we gathered in a circle for an hour or so. We passed a talking stone and shared what was on our heart and mind. Even more than the beauty of the lakes and forests, I loved these times of sharing. Although each of us was different, we learned how much we had in common. All us of were broken and blessed pilgrims. Hearing from one another allowed spirit and love to flow freely between us.

This past Thursday evening at the church, 14 of us participated in a sharing circle. Given that it was promoted as a chance to share our reactions to shifts in the culture and how they might affect the work of the church, I was not surprised that both hope and fear emerged as themes.

Fear is on an upswing. Many of us are afraid of growing diversity and so want to retreat behind protective walls. Others of us are afraid of the damage that might come from building such walls.

Amid these fears, I pray that we might listen for the call of God’s Spirit and respond in ways that confront and dissolve some of our fears.

Yesterday, thousands of people in Edmonton and millions around the world took to the streets in response of a call to rally for women’s rights. In a time of increased fear, a call went out, millions responded, and they widely shared a message of courage, defiance and love. That’s call and response.

I will end this reflection with a short video that offers another call and response story. It is an animation of a speech given by someone I consider to be a brilliant preacher. Although he has just moved off the centre of the world’s stage, I trust that his voice will be continued to be heard for years to come.

I came across the video on Facebook. A colleague of mine, the Rev. Alexa Gilmour of Toronto, posted it on Friday to inspire courage. I loved it; and I’d be happy to know after the service how it strikes you.

“Fired up!” by Barack Obama

Text: Matthew 3:13-17 (John baptizes Jesus)

“Remember your baptism!” preachers often exclaim. And having just heard about the baptism of Jesus, this might seem like an appropriate day to do so. But what if you were baptized as infant?

I have precious few memories from before the age of five and none from before the age of three. So, I don’t remember being baptized just a few months after I was born.

The question of adult versus infant baptism is one of several issues surrounding this sacrament. Others include whether baptism can be repeated or not; whether it is an entry into the worldwide church or just something specific to one church; whether it should include full immersion under water or only use a few drops; whether the patriarchal formula “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” is required or not; and whether baptism is necessary for salvation or is just a symbol of welcome.

But today I don’t focus on those controversies. Today as we move deeper into the Season of Epiphany, I reflect upon baptism as a symbol of emerging into the light. Baptism can remind us that we are sacred individuals blessed both with conscious awareness and with the ability to relax back into the river of life when we need to recharge.

Water is they key element for life on earth, and so it makes sense that baptism as the primary ritual of the Christian tradition involves water.

Life first began in the ocean more than three billion years ago; and it was not until about 500 million years ago that some species migrated to dry land. Because of their watery origins, terrestrial plants and animals are largely made of water, including humans, which are about 70% water by weight.

Plunging into a body of water takes us back to life’s source. Emerging from it into the light is like being reborn.

John offered a baptism for the forgiveness of sins in the Jordan River. It was a ritual of cleansing and a symbol of forgiveness. Perhaps because of its connection to sin, John says he does not feel worthy to baptize Jesus. Nevertheless, he baptizes him, which provides another example of Jesus standing in solidarity with the sinners who came to the Jordan long ago and with those who seek forgiveness today.

The Jordan forms one of the borders of the Promised Land, which gave it significance to ancient Jews. According to the book of Joshua, the descendants of Hebrew slaves from Egypt ended their 40-year Exodus in the desert when they crossed the Jordan. So, emerging from the waters of the Jordan must have carried an extra connotation of deliverance for those baptized in it by John.

Water carries other meanings. The ocean is symbol of the unconscious mind, the part of our psyche where most of our motivations and thoughts lie outside of awareness.

Viewed from this perspective, emerging from the waters of baptism is a symbol of waking up and a symbol of Epiphany.

After Jesus and his friends are baptized by John in the Jordan, they begin their ministry of healing, teaching, and community-building. To remember our baptism is to remember our status as loving friends who gather in community to reflect, to reach out in compassion, and to struggle for social change.

As a baptized and baptizing people, we are called to be awake to our situation, our purpose, and our path.

But we can’t always stay awake. Humans continually switch between consciousness and unconsciousness. When we wake up in the morning, we gain the opportunity to live another day, to talk with friends, to work in the community, and to experience anew this world of wonders. If we are lucky, most mornings we are excited to know what is going on and how we can fit in.

But at the end of the day, we are also grateful for sleep. Sinking into sleep each night is like re-entering the unconscious waters from which we have come.

Unfortunately, many things can challenge our ability to stay awake. Most of us struggle to come to grips with human sickness and mortality. Most of us are challenged by social realities like war and pollution.

Do we really want to know about that human population has more than tripled in the last century? Do we really want to learn about all the pollution caused by economic activity? Do we really want to hear about the latest outrage of our political leaders?

Sometimes the answer is no. So, we turn off the news and stop thinking about life’s problems. And I think it can be OK to “turn off your mind, relax and float down stream” as a Beatles song recommends.

The hymn that frames this service — “River Running in You and Me,” provides images that I like when thinking about the swing between wakefulness and sleep.

It pictures life as a river that flows through each of us, a river that carries us all down to the holy sea. Life started in the sea and eventually we empty back into it. Sometimes we surface into the air, as with baptism, which gives us space to remember our sacred nature. But much of the time we are swept below the surface of the river, unaware of what is happening, but still supported by the sacred cycle of life.

Moments of enlightenment are blessings. They allow us to learn and do our work as a baptized and baptizing people. But not every moment can be an epiphany; and times when we are swept along unconsciously can also be blessed.

Church controversies about baptism abound. But instead of worrying about them, today I pray that we simply give thanks for the sacrament and for the forgiveness and the enlightenment it symbolizes.

Even though I don’t remember the day of my baptism, I am glad that I was baptized, and I feel privileged to be part of a community that baptizes newcomers whether babies or adults. Participating in baptism helps us to remember how each person is immersed in the sacred river of life.

At various moments, we surface and experience the joy of new learning. At other times, we will sink below the surface and trust in the sacred power of the river of life to bear us graciously back to the sea.

So, may we remember with joy that everyone and everything flows back into God’s ocean of Love.

Remember your baptism! You will be glad you did.

Text: Luke 1:26-56 (the miraculous conception of Jesus)

Churches like Mill Woods United spend a lot of time disseminating news. We maintain a website and a presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We send out a weekly e-newsletter called “What’s the Buzz.” We produce the Morning Messenger news bulletin every week. We advertise in The Mill Woods Mosaic. In our Sunday morning gatherings, we share both encouraging news and concerns.

Beyond this local communication, our prime mandate is to proclaim the Good News of God as revealed in the stories of Jesus Christ. Like all other churches, we are agents of Good News with a capital “G” and a capital “N.”

This morning, I remind us that churches are news agencies to introduce one of this year’s hot topics: fake news. Last month, the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary announced that its 2016 word of the year was post-truth. It defined post-truth as a time “in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

In a post-truth world, it no longer matters if our leaders tell lies. The only thing that matters is whether their speech fits with the fears and prejudices of their subjects.

Fake news comes from a variety of sources: entrepreneurs who make money by providing “click-bait” to partisan audiences; fraudulent research institutions that are created by industries under siege like Big Tobacco; political activists who spread slanders; and mainstream publishers that emphasize sensationalism over reporting in the face of declining ad revenue.

This week, I listened to a CBC radio discussion about fake news. One of the creators of the CBC satirical news show “This Is That” said that the spread of non-satirical fake news on social media platforms like Facebook has made it more difficult for satirists like him to practice their comedy.

In September “This is That” aired a story about a condo residence in Toronto that had been built without any bathrooms. After a link to this satirical story was loaded onto the show’s website, it was shared on Facebook by people who used it to spark discussion about the negative consequences of the condo construction boom in Toronto and Vancouver.

To the comedians at “This is That,” the story seemed like a perfectly harmless and ridiculous one. But it was treated by others as a source of outrage.

One of my favourite websites, Religion News Service, also tackled the subject of fake news last week. RNS is an award-winning site affiliated with the Missouri School of Journalism.

In discussing the efforts of Facebook to weed out fake news, a satirical article on the site listed headlines from recent RNS articles that might not make the cut including “Roman Catholic Church certifies Mother Teresa’s miracles ahead of being named a saint,” and “Is Ebola a curse from God? Some African Christian leaders think so” and others from an evangelical publication “The Christian Post” including “Do freshwater pools found near the Dead Sea fulfill the Bible’s End Times Prophecy?”

This piece reminds us that much of what is presented as news by churches looks like made-up nonsense to people outside the church.

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear a story that strikes many people as made up — the virginal conception of Jesus. Taken at face value, the story violates our faith in the shared reality revealed to us by science. Nevertheless, many of us cherish it because of the mystery it can lend to our preparations for Christmas.

This morning we also heard Mary’s reaction to the news that she will give birth to the Messiah. She sings that God has “deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. [God] has filled the hungry with good things, while sending the rich away empty.”

To think of this song as something other than a literary creation can stretch our credulity. Mary would have sung this song as a 15-year old illiterate peasant. Luke wrote it down more than 90 years later. Like much of the rest of the first chapter of Luke, Mary’s song is patterned after the story of Hannah and her miracle child Samuel from the Hebrew Bible. But even if we believe it is a literary creation, many of us love Mary’s song because it has given voice to the hopes and dreams of generations of poor and oppressed people.

And what about the Good News that may be contained in Luke’s account of the angel Gabriel, Mary, and the conception of Jesus?

I embrace Good News when it fits the path of death and resurrection revealed by the Way of Jesus. For me, this means the death of illusions in national glory and in gods who favour one tribe over another and the resurrection of universal love and healing on the ashes of these illusions.

I reject any so-called Good News that is not universal, which means that I reject a lot of what is proclaimed by various religious groups.

Such universalism does not demand that we abandon our traditions. In the case of today’s reading, I assume Mary’s Song is a literary creation while seeing our own dreams for peace with justice reflected in it.

Today on the second Sunday of Advent, the church calls us to look for peace. Many elements can flow together to create peace in our hearts and in the world. For me, one of them is commitment to facts shared by people of different cultural backgrounds. Another element is cherishing the dreams contained in ancient stories like the one we heard today about the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary.

Each Advent, we proclaim God’s Good News of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. Our ability to do so is facilitated by ancient stories like those about Mary, but it is not dependent on them. We believe that the stories in the Bible are just one path among many to enlightenment. We also know that the guarantee found in Mary’s song is not a guarantee of peace in our time. It is a guarantee that joy and love can be found by working with others for the dream of peace with justice.

As we prepare for the birth of Jesus this Advent, may we stand against fake news. May we use our critical faculties to discern together what is factual and what is propaganda. And may we also continue to work for the dream of peace of which Mary sings.

Searching for shared truth can bring us closer to the Good News of the Peace and Love that shines even in the darkest Advent and which lights our way to the dreams of Christmas Eve.

Text: Luke 1:5-25 (the miraculous conception of John the Baptist)

What does the biblical expression “Here I am” signify? Several key figures in the Hebrew Scriptures repeat it. Abraham says “Here I am” in Genesis when YHWH orders him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Jacob says “Here I am” when an angel calls to him in a dream. Moses says “Here I am” in Exodus when YHWH calls to him from a burning bush. Young Samuel says “Here I am” each time YHWH calls to him in the night. King David says “Here I am” in Psalm 40.

“Hineni,” the Hebrew word from the quote printed in today’s service bulletin, means “Here I am. ” The quote is taken from the song “You Want it Darker” by Leonard Cohen. Cohen, who died on November 7 at age 82, released this song just last month. In the refrain, he sings “Hineni, Hineni / I’m ready, my Lord.”

I used to think the phrase “Here I am” meant a willingness to do God’s work. This is the sense I get from the hymn “I the Lord of Sea and Sky,” which we will sing at the end of this service. It suggests that the singer holds God’s light and speaks God’s word to the people.

But in Cohen’s song, “Here I am” seems to imply a simple acceptance of one’s situation. When Cohen was writing the song, this would have been the acceptance of his own impending death. For Cohen, “Here I am” is not about doing something as much as it is about being open to the moment.

For me, this type of acceptance is a model for Advent Hope. When we are young, we hope that our wishes will come true. We hope for good weather or for a popular gift at Christmas. But this kind of hope — as inevitable as it is when we are children — can get in the way of joy instead of opening us up to it.

The poet T.S. Eliot portrays this idea in his 1930 poem “Ash Wednesday.” In it, he continually repeats the phrase, “Because I do not hope” before finally revealing that this lack of hope has opened him up to joy. Eliot writes:

Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place . . . I rejoice that things are as they are

On this Grey Cup Sunday, I use football to illustrate. Many of us venerate our football team. We might hope that our team wins every game, or at least that it wins every Grey Cup. But not only is this a hope guaranteed to be dashed. Even if it came true, the constant winning might become boring.

It is better, I believe, to enjoy the balance of disappointment and gratification that is the reality of football. The drama of the game always involves missteps as well as brilliant plays and losses as well as wins. Hoping for what is actual makes a team’s rare Grey Cup victories sweeter than always getting what a childish part of us wants.

As children, we hope for perfection, and it always eludes us. But later in life, we come to realize that perfection is neither possible nor desirable. Another song of Cohen’s, “Anthem,” makes this point.

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in.

When we realize that it is the cracks that allow in the light, we stumble into Grace.

Today’s Gospel reading is about becoming a parent. It tells of the conception of John the Baptist by Zechariah and Elizabeth. This is the final in a long series of conceptions involving impossibly old people in the Bible. It is told just before the story of another miraculous conception, that involving Elizabeth’s young relative Mary who is the mother of Jesus, and which we will hear next week.

Unlike Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Samuel, and David, Zechariah is frightened when the Angel Gabriel appears to him. Unlike them, he does not say “Here I am.” He may also be afraid about becoming a parent since parenting is the most difficult and risky thing most people ever undertake. The gospels tell us that King Herod executes his son John. We don’t know if he and Elizabeth are alive when John is killed, but we do know that Mary is present when John’s cousin Jesus is executed.

Most people hope for children, but being a parent brings pain as well as joy. This is yet another reason, I think, to look for the light that the cracks can let in.

Cohen suggests that God wants it darker. Advent is a dark season that leads to the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice on December 21. The light that follows at Christmas is light that shines through the cracks of life.

When we stop hoping for perfection, we are freed to hope for what is actual, including reality’s many cracks and the light that sometimes shines through them.

We may not like winter’s dark and cold. But we can find beauty and passion there. We may not like the violence of today’s society, but it is the only place where we can feel the joy of working with others for justice, of singing carols of love, and of caring for one another.

When Leonard Cohen died on November 7, I imagine that his practice of singing “Here I am” helped him “to stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on his lips but Hallelujah.”

My prayer for us this Advent is that we will forget our perfect offering and instead sing Cohen’s refrain of faith, hope and love: “Hineni / Here I am Lord.”

Text: “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver * context: a sermon given at the 40th anniversary service of Mill Woods United

Do you remember what you were doing on the evening of November 14, 1976? Everyone under the age of 45 is excused from answering, of course. Then there are the 13 of us here today who were charter members of Mill Woods United. Cathy Bayly reminded us at the start of the service that on that evening 40 years ago you were probably in a gymnasium of Grace Martin School at the gathering that constituted Mill Woods as an official pastoral charge of the United Church of Canada. But what about the rest of us?

I don’t remember what I was doing on the evening of Sunday November 14, 1976. I do know that three months earlier, I had moved 200 km west to Toronto from my parents’ home in Belleville to begin studying at York University.

However, the next evening — November 15, 1976 — is one that I remember clearly. I spent it at the offices of the student newspaper where my older brother Paul was an editor. A group of us — all left-wing radicals — were glued to radio reports from Quebec about an election that shocked North America.

Sound familiar? Forty years ago, the day after Mill Woods United became an official congregation, the Parti Quebecois won its first election in Quebec. The prospect of a separatist government shook Canada to its core. Would the PQ succeed in pulling Quebec out of Confederation? Would the rest of Canada survive?

Like this month’s election in the United States, that election 40 years ago brought to the surface long-simmering historical divisions. In Quebec, it was between the descendants of the colonists of New France, which had been conquered by Britain in 1763, and Anglo-Canadians. In the United States, it is division between the descendants of white settlers and non-white immigrants along with the descendants of African slaves.

The Quebec election in 1976 raised up a group that had often been losers in the history of colonial North America: French Canadians. My radical friends and I were thrilled. Visions of national liberation and revolution danced in our heads.

The American election of November 8 raised up the fears of a group that have been winners in the long history of colonial America, the descendants of white settlers. The election was what Van Jones of CNN on election night called a “whitelash” against demographic and cultural change.

I bring up memories of an election 40 years ago and fears of a recent one to focus on three things. One is the continuing effects of European colonialism. If we can’t bind up the wounds of the conquests and genocides that accompanied the movement of European empires into the Americas, they will continue to poison us.

Second, I am reminding myself that electoral surprises occur all the time; and that they often don’t lead to the utopias we dream about or to the nightmares we fear. The impact of this month’s U.S. presidential election will not be clear for a while, so I am trying to calm myself and focus on the sacred values that have always shaped our life and work.

Third, I am struck that the 40 years of the history of this congregation spans my entire adulthood. This is one of the reasons I have enjoyed commemorating this anniversary. For people like me who are nearing the end of their careers, it is a chance to reflect on what we have done so far and to discuss with younger people the challenge of finding a meaningful path in family, work, and community.

This process brought to my mind the phrase, “Your one wild and precious life” by American poet Mary Oliver. It is taken from her 1992 poem “The Summer Day,” which I now read:

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean — the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down — who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Her poem highlights much of what I find central to a life of faith: paying attention; kneeling in stillness; focussing on blessings; and realizing that everything dies at last, and too soon, which helps us to remember that we only have this one wild and precious life.

People of faith do more than this, of course. We reach out to one another and our neighbours with compassion. We share our brokenness and our blessings. We come together in times of loss to mourn and in times of joy to give thanks.

We study ancient traditions and translate them in the changing context of this neighbourhood and time.

We cope with the stresses of a society that is not of our making and is often not to our liking. We find jobs, try to raise our children as best we can, and work with others to resist the forces of violence and inequality.

This work of life, church, and community is not about success or failure. The latter only exist in our minds. Instead, it is about the choices we make to stay awake or to be distracted; to respect our neighbours or to remain prejudiced towards them; and to stand up for peace with justice or to roll over in the face of bullying and hatred.

This month’s election in the United States reveals the ugly side of the church. So many white Christians were willing to support racism, sexism, and violence! Unfortunately, such currents have been part of our history even since the Roman Empire adopted the church as its state religion 1700 years ago.

But there is another side to our tradition, one that for 40 years has fed the souls and inspired the actions of people at Mill Woods United. It is the path of Jesus on which we find healing, inclusion and compassion; spiritual wisdom; non-violent resistance to empire; and a willingness to sacrifice everything for the love of friends and neighbours.

As fellow pilgrims on the road, we help each other to kneel in thanksgiving; to rise in songs of love and justice; and to be present to each other in times of loss and love, pain and joy.

People in the beloved community of Mill Woods United have been doing this for 40 years. I give thanks that we gather to worship, share, and organize. It is community where we can inspire our creativity, reach out to others in solidarity, and nurture our souls for the awesome journey of life.

I don’t know how dark the shadows cast by the presidency of Donald Trump will be. I do know that in good times and bad, this is the kind of community I want to build. It is one in which we can remember that everything dies at last, and too soon, but which helps us to stay awake to every blessed moment of this one, wild and precious life.

And for this and so much more I say again, “Thanks be to God.”